Many infrastructure systems such as water pipes and drainage systems require measurements of their operation on an ongoing basis. Sensors, of many kinds and types, are being deployed on site in order to measure various metrics and transmit the measurements, usually via a communication network, to a centralized control center, where the data is being analyzed. These sensors are usually energetically autonomous and are equipped with their own power source, which is usually in the form of a battery and therefore has a limited capacity.
Since, in most cases, the communication network is a wireless communication network (such as a cellular communication network), a strict usage of power is dictated. Specifically, as the amount of load or congestion over the communication network varies over time affecting the traffic, so does the power consumption that is required for transmitting a specific amount of data from the sensors.
Some solutions for power management on the network level are known in the art for sensory network. For example, WIPO publication No. WO 2012/167807 aims to reduce congestion and perform load balancing on a communication network. This requires knowledge of the activities of multiple devices communicating over the network. The objective is taken from the network perspective and while improving bandwidth, performance, and efficiency of the network at large, it might actually compromise or damage the power consumption of a particular transmission node. For example, in a case of a network interference at a specific hour in the day, the network may observe that nodes are not transmitting and instruct a specified node to go and transmit at that hour, which will inevitably lead to an increase of power consumption at this node because of the interferences.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method to use knowledge of the power consumption at the transmission node, in order to schedule transmission time slots of data obtained by on-site sensors over such a wireless channel established by the transmission node, for reducing the power consumption at the transmission node.